DOCSLIB.ORG

SOCIAL ACCOUNTING-A Survey

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
SOCIAL ACCOUNTING-A Survey International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM) Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: [email protected], [email protected] Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 ISSN 2319 - 4847 SOCIAL ACCOUNTING-A survey Seema Gull1, Anand Hanchinal2, Salma M. B.3 1,2,3BVBCET, Hubli, India ABSTRACT Social accounting is concerned with the development of measurement system to monitor social performance. Sustainability and social responsibility appear to be occupying a place of increasing importance in the discourse surrounding business and organization. Simultaneously, societal concerns for the way in which organisations represent themselves with respect to social responsibility and sustainability stimulate a need for wider accountability. Social accounting has grown, in a relatively few years, from a very marginal area of interest and practice to a diverse and vibrant area of research, teaching and practice. Incidentally, some of this vibrancy may well derive from there being twin sources of literature in the field of accounting on the one hand and finance the broader management and organisational studies on the other. In this paper we discuss what social accounting is, could and/or should be & whether social accounting could have succeeded more obviously in raising and maintaining an energetic discourse. The paper provides a brief introduction to the growth in the social accounting literature. This article, using descriptive method, firstly, explains social accounting, its goals and assumptions, then, expressing social profitability of accounting information amount, declares its current position and social accounting system implementation. Keywords: Accounting, managerialism, proceduralism, nonstockholder. 1. INTRODUCTION Social accounting and audit is a framework which allows an organization to build on existing documents and reporting and develop a process where by it can account for its social performance, report on that performance and through which it can understand its impact on the community and be accountable to its key stakeholders. One of the major growth areas within accounting in the last decades has been “accounting for the environment”, which has generated interest well beyond the confines of accounting academics and professional accountants of “developed” countries[1]. In the 1970s the concept of social accounting accepted by a most cited paper [2]: “social accounting refers to the ordering, measuring and analysis of the social and economic consequences of governmental and entrepreneurial behavior. So defined, social accounting is seen as encompassing and extending present accounting. Traditional accounting has limited its concern to selected economic consequences – whether in the financial, managerial, or national income areas. Socio-economic accounting expands each of these areas to include social consequences as well as economic effects which are not presently considered”. Three important parts of social accounting- 1. Social book-keeping ‘the means by which information is routinely collected during the year of record performance in relation to the stated social objectives. 2. Social audit - the process of reviewing and verifying the social accounts at the end of each social audit cycle. The term social audit is also used generically for the concept and for the whole process. 3. Stake holders - those people or groups who are either affected by or who can affect the activities of an organization. Accountability is based on the principal of rights to information – rights that derive from a number of sources: legal, quasi- legal, moral and so on. The principal idea is that power and responsibility need to be matched in a fair society. This matching is ensured by the demos who, in turn, require information on which to make the appropriate judgments. The accounts of organizations are one of these sources of information and without these accounts, democracy is hollow, the demos is powerless and, depending on the circumstances, the power of the (non) accountable organizations significantly outstrips their responsibility. These accounts are, thus, absolutely and definitionally central to what it is to have a just democracy (see, for example, [3], for further exploration of this point within an social accounting context. During the period 1971-1980, the social and environmental accounting literature was underdeveloped and the leading North American accounting research journals were almost as inaccessible to social and environmental accounting literature then as they are now [4]. A list of social and environmental articles’ publisher journals of the period is below. Accounting, Organization and Society Accounting Review Business and Society California Management Review Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 Page 311 International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM) Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: [email protected], [email protected] Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 ISSN 2319 - 4847 Canadian Chartered Accountant Cost and Management CPA Magazine Harvard Business Review Journal of Accounting Research Journal of Contemporary Business Management Accounting Mississippi Business Review National Public Accountant Nation’s Business The Accounting Review The Journal of Accountancy So, although Accounting, Organizations and Society was not, therefore, the first journal to publish systematic investigations into and explorations of social accounting, it was the first to undertake any kind of systematic encouragement of the field and to explicitly recognize it as an important part of its mission [5].An attempt to break down or classify social accounting into major content areas is promoted by [6] who suggests that there are five possibly overlapping categories. 1. National social income accounting (macro accounting), which has existed since 1930s, and it pursues the measurement of national quality of life on a macro basis. 2. Social auditing, approach at the level of the firm by attempting to assess an entities responsiveness to its social responsibilities over such matters as pollution control, minority employment, and employee welfare. 3. Financial/managerial social accounting for non-profit entities, is similar to social auditing except that performance evaluations are restricted to not-for-profit organizations. 4. Financial social accounting, which is primarily concerned with external disclosures by firms in social responsibility areas including human resource asset accounting and compliance with Securities Exchange Commission regulations concerning environmental impact standards. 5. Managerial social accounting, Emphasizes the development of social responsibility measurements and a reporting system geared to internal decision-making purposes. 6. Social accounting is a fairly broad topic. According to Estes[7], stakeholder accounting might be a better term for the concept because it involves the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, financial investors, neighboring communities and society at large. 2. SOCIAL ACCOUNTING GOALS 1. Periodic measurement and determination of net social benefits in an individual institute which contains social expenses and internal incomes for the institution and increase of external savings in social sections 2. Society economic resources are limited, so it’s necessary to reach maximum productivity in applying any using them so that the social benefit of their use is more than social expenses. 3. The goods, which were free before, will not be available such free any more. For example, for the pure water and air heavy expenditure of regulations to control environmental pollution and self-purification operations is required. So the entity must provide benefits to the community for using it. 4. It’s certain right to be aware of social obligation amount of entity to itself and also the amount it’s been done and this awareness needs to be according to principles and basics of accounting reporting. Social accounting includes pollution and environmental issues as one might expect, but many other issues as well. Some of these issues include: 1. Unsafe products and work places 2. Cost padding and fraud in defense contracting 3. Corporate bulling of communities 4. Racism, and the exploitation of women and other groups Although accounting has generally ignored non-stockholder stakeholders, many organizations produce reports about corporations. According to Estes, the movement toward a new social accounting is needed and underway, but few accountants are involved. However, accountants have the potential to lead the way and create a new accounting for stakeholders. The accounting profession can rise to its potential and make a real contribution to society, or sink into irrelevancy. Briefly, social accounting within the academy has been predominantly concerned with organization-based accounts of social and environmental interactions. One major theme within this has been a concern to develop accountability in the name of some democratic ideal. The focus, possibly unfortunately, has principally been upon corporations – especially large corporations. This has, at its simplest, probably been driven by the conventional focus of traditional accounting academe mingled with a very proper concern over the power and influence of the corporation in the construction of Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 Page 312 International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM) Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: [email protected], [email protected] Volume
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Chapter 11. Fire Alarms and Democratic Accountability Charles M. Cameron and Sanford C. Gordon
    Chapter 11. Fire Alarms and Democratic Accountability Charles M. Cameron and Sanford C. Gordon 1 Introduction Accountability is a situation that prevails in any relationship between a principal and agent in which the latter takes some action for which she may be \held to account" { that is, made to answer for those actions under a system of rewards and sanctions administered by the former. In a democratic setting, the electorate are the principals and public officials the agents; rewards and sanctions the loss or retention of the benefits, privileges, and powers of office-holding. Absent electoral accountability, citizens must fall back on the benevolence of their rulers or just plain luck. History shows these are weak reeds indeed. Thus, the accountability (or unaccountability) of elected officials to voters is a key component of any comprehensive theory of democratic governance. Electoral accountability faces huge obstacles in practice. One of the most pernicious is the problem of asymmetric information: while knowing what politicians are up to is surely a critical ingredient of holding incumbent officeholders to account, for most voters, becoming and remaining informed about whether elected officials are actually meeting their obligations can be tedious, time- consuming and difficult. How many citizens have the leisure to research the voting record of their member of Congress, for instance? And even then, outside of a few specific areas, how many have the knowledge to assess whether a given legislative enactment actually improved their welfare, all things considered? A lack of transparency about actions and the obscurity between means and ends can render nominal accountability completely moot in practice.1 In the face of prohibitive information costs, a simple intuition is the following: any mechanism that lowers informational costs for voters ought to enhance electoral accountability.
    [Show full text]
  • Why AWS for Gxp Regulated Workloads? an Executive Summary
    Why AWS for GxP regulated workloads? An executive summary Move, or build, GxP workloads in the cloud with help from the AWS Life Sciences Practice The AWS life sciences practice and dedicated GxP experts help biopharma and medical device companies build new, or move, regulated workloads to the cloud. Organizations can achieve higher productivity, increased operational resilience, greater agility, improved transparency and traceability, and a lower TCO1 and carbon footprint on AWS2 compared to on-premises systems. AWS offers a secure cloud platform for automating compliance processes and providing enhanced management related to running your GxP workloads. Some of the biggest enterprises and innovative startups in life sciences have moved, or built new GxP systems on the AWS Cloud. Decades of expertise in the life sciences space enable us to help you move away from on-premises regulatory paradigms as your trusted advisor to becoming regulated cloud native. Evidence of success: Evidence of success: AWS customers AWS partners Moderna power their R&D and manufacturing Aizon use AWS to enable real-time visibility and environments on AWS to accelerate the development predictive insights that address GxP compliance. of mRNA therapeutics and vaccines. Idorsia house 90% of IT operations on AWS, including Core Informatics developed a platform on AWS that GxP compliant virtual data centers, giving them 75% enables GxP-validated applications in the cloud for cost savings compared to physical data centers its customers. Bristol Myers Squibb use AWS to create consistent, Tracelink choose AWS to support its life science scalable, and repeatable process to streamline cloud solution to meet customer compliance needs.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Harmonism; Human Rights Under Functional Government [By
    I'll I SOCIAL HARMONISM Human Rights Under Functional Government HOLMES W. MERTON PUBLISHED BY HOLMES W. MERTON New York City Generated for deveneyjp (University of Chicago) on 2015-12-16 13:39 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxpifl / GMT 13:39 2015-12-16 on Chicago) of (University deveneyjp for Generated http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd-google / Google-digitized Domain, Public CANCCLLLD FROM BAKER LIBRARY 5366 \ Copyright. 1914 International Copyright. 1914 By Holmes W. Merton Generated for deveneyjp (University of Chicago) on 2015-12-16 13:39 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxpifl / GMT 13:39 2015-12-16 on Chicago) of (University deveneyjp for Generated http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd-google / Google-digitized Domain, Public CONTENTS / PAGE Pbeliminabt Subvey 6 CONCERNING LIFE UNDER MIS-REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. The Criterion of Government 17 Progress and the Emotions 43 Mental Servitude 49 Concerning Majorities 63 Executives and the Judiciary 75 Vocation Representation 85 Ownership : Rent : Interest 91 CONCERNING LIFE UNDER REAL REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. Functional Representation Ill Department op Science— The Law of Logic 125 Department of Industry— The Law of Industry 141 Department of Wealth — The Law of Ownership 167 Department of Arts— The Law of Perception 191 Department of Letters —The Law of Memory 205 Department of Culture— The Law of Progress 21 7 Department of Marriage — The Law of Sexality 229 Department of Familism —The Law of Parentity 245 Department of Home — The Law of Bodily Wants 257 Department
    [Show full text]
  • Social Accounting: a Practical Guide for Small-Scale Community Organisations
    Social Accounting: A Practical Guide for Small-Scale Community Organisations Social Accounting: A Practical Guide for Small Community Organisations and Enterprises Jenny Cameron Carly Gardner Jessica Veenhuyzen Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, The University of Newcastle, Australia. Version 2, July 2010 This page is intentionally blank for double-sided printing. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………..1 How this Guide Came About……………………………………………………2 WHAT IS SOCIAL ACCOUNTING?………………………………………………..3 Benefits.………………………………………………………………………....3 Challenges.……………………………………………………………………....4 THE STEPS………………………………………...…………………………………..5 Step 1: Scoping………………………………….………………………………6 Step 2: Accounting………………………………………………………………7 Step 3: Reporting and Responding…………………….……………………….14 APPLICATION I: THE BEANSTALK ORGANIC FOOD…………………….…16 APPLICATION II: FIG TREE COMMUNITY GARDEN…………………….…24 REFERENCES AND RESOURCES…………………………………...……………33 Acknowledgements We would like to thank The Beanstalk Organic Food and Fig Tree Community Garden for being such willing participants in this project. We particularly acknowledge the invaluable contribution of Rhyall Gordon and Katrina Hartwig from Beanstalk, and Craig Manhood and Bill Roberston from Fig Tree. Thanks also to Jo Barraket from the The Australian Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology, and Gianni Zappalà and Lisa Waldron from the Westpac Foundation for their encouragement and for providing an opportunity for Jenny and Rhyall to present a draft version at the joint QUT and Westpac Foundation Social Evaluation Workshop in June 2010. Thanks to the participants for their feedback. Finally, thanks to John Pearce for introducing us to Social Accounting and Audit, and for providing encouragement and feedback on a draft version. While we have adopted the framework and approach to suit the context of small and primarily volunteer-based community organisations and enterprises, we hope that we have remained true to the intentions of Social Accounting and Audit.
    [Show full text]
  • Suggestions from Social Accountability International
    Suggestions from Social Accountability International (SAI) on the work agenda of the UN Working Group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises Social Accountability International (SAI) is a non-governmental, international, multi-stakeholder organization dedicated to improving workplaces and communities by developing and implementing socially responsible standards. SAI recognizes the value of the UN Working Group’s mandate to promote respect for human rights by business of all sizes, as the implementation of core labour standards in company supply chains is central to SAI’s own work. SAI notes that the UN Working Group emphasizes in its invitation for proposals from relevant actors and stakeholders, the importance it places not only on promoting the Guiding Principles but also and especially on their effective implementation….resulting in improved outcomes . SAI would support this as key and, therefore, has teamed up with the Netherlands-based ICCO (Interchurch Organization for Development) to produce a Handbook on How To Respect Human Rights in the International Supply Chain to assist leading companies in the practical implementation of the Ruggie recommendations. SAI will also be offering classes and training to support use of the Handbook. SAI will target the Handbook not just at companies based in Western economies but also at those in emerging countries such as Brazil and India that have a growing influence on the world’s economy and whose burgeoning base of small and medium companies are moving forward in both readiness, capacity and interest in managing their impact on human rights. SAI has long term relationships working with businesses in India and Brazil, where national companies have earned SA8000 certification and where training has been provided on implementing human rights at work to numerous businesses of all sizes.
    [Show full text]
  • From Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Accountability
    Hastings Business Law Journal Volume 16 Number 1 Winter 2020 Article 3 Winter 2020 From Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Accountability Min Yan Daoning Zhang Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_business_law_journal Part of the Business Organizations Law Commons Recommended Citation Min Yan and Daoning Zhang, From Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Accountability, 16 Hastings Bus. L.J. 43 (2020). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_business_law_journal/vol16/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Business Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 2 - YAN _ZHANG - V9 - KC - 10.27.19.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 11/15/2019 11:11 AM From Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Accountability Min Yan* and Daoning Zhang** I. INTRODUCTION The concept of corporate responsibility or corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) keeps evolving since it appeared. The emphasis was first placed on business people’s social conscience rather than on the company itself, which was well reflected by Howard Bowen’s landmark book, Social Responsibilities of the Businessman.1 Then CSR was defined as responsibilities to society, which extends beyond economic and legal obligations by corporations.2 Since then, corporate responsibility is thought to begin where the law ends. 3 In other words, the concept of social responsibility largely excludes legal obedience from the concept of social responsibility. An analysis of 37 of the most used definitions of CSR also shows “voluntary” as one of the most common dimensions.4 Put differently, corporate responsibility reflects the belief that corporations have duties beyond generating profits for their shareholders.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutions, Organizations and Individuals Advocating for Corporate Accountability Condemn Chevron's Retaliatory Attacks on H
    Institutions, Organizations and Individuals Advocating for Corporate Accountability Condemn Chevron’s Retaliatory Attacks on Human Rights and Corporate Accountability Advocates and See it as a Serious Threat to Open Society and Due Process of Law January 23, 2014 - We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, condemn the actions by Chevron in its efforts to silence critics and ignore a $9.5 billion judgment against it for environmental damage in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron’s actions set a dangerous precedent and represent a growing and serious threat to the ability of civil society to hold corporations accountable for their misdeeds around the world. Since Chevron launched its attack on those who have been working for decades to pressure the company to clean up the environmental damage caused by its operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon, independent journalists have been forced to turn over their material and nonprofit watchdog groups have faced massive legal actions designed to cripple their ability to work and undermine their ability to grow support for their efforts. Attacks Free Speech In a move opposed by The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, Dow Jones, the Associated Press, the Hearst Newspapers, the Daily News, and the Gannett Company, Chevron used its legal might to launch a major threat to independent journalism when it won a decision to force documentary producer and director Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage. Chevron has also targeted nonprofit environmental and indigenous rights groups and individual activists with subpoenas designed to cripple their effectiveness and chill their speech.
    [Show full text]
  • CSR in LEO Pharma - Focus Areas 2013-2016
    – Corporate Social Responsibility Report — we help people achieve healthy skin Environment & Safety People & Health Compliance & Ethics Partnerships & Collaboration Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) LEO Pharma CSR Report 2014 – Corporate Social Responsibility Report LEO Pharma in brief Founded in 1908 Headquarters in Denmark Offering care solutions to patients in more than 4,800 employees 100 Present in countries 61 countries with Owned by the LEO employees LEO Foundation Therapeutic areas Psoriasis Actinic keratosis Skin infections Eczema Acne Thrombosis Other areas of care Page – 2 Contents 5 Statement from the President & CEO 6 The commitment of LEO Pharma 7 LEO CSR Strategy 8 LEO Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy 9 CSR in LEO Pharma - Focus areas 2013-2016 10 Environment & Safety 14 People & Health 18 Compliance & Ethics 22 Partnerships & Collaboration 26 Appendix: Focus areas, goals and milestones 2013-2016 30 Glossary 31 LEO values 31 Contact This report represents LEO Pharma’s compliance with Section 99a and 99b of the Danish Financial Statements Act Page – 3 – Corporate Social Responsibility Report LEO mission We help people achieve healthy skin LEO vision We are the preferred dermatology care partner improving people’s lives around the world Page – 4 Statement from the President & CEO Dear stakeholders, Our mission in LEO Pharma is to help people achieve healthy skin and in 2014 we have helped 48 million patients. LEO Pharma is committed to changing the impact skin diseases have on people’s lives. In 2014, the WHO resolution on psoriasis was adopted, recognising psoriasis as a chronic and disabling disease – a significant step for patients worldwide – which LEO Pharma We help people achieve supports.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Obligations of Accounting
    Social Obligations Of Accounting Lobulate Francesco covenants greenly. Drake is waxing and Gallicizes wondrous while ill-gotten Adrian besieges and short-list. Srinivas is deictic and retuned displeasingly as front-rank Simone hurrahs intuitively and vamosing unaware. Some major categories: social obligations accounting standards. Social or that corporations will apply professionalmanagement to generate one of a business and water, social obligations accounting. Many ways that data for accounting are ruled by law. Most important concept with every year and of social responsibilities of grassroots environmental reporting. Expert help embrace your enquiries and research. Through change methods or factors that already have done under a social accounting? As these firms demonstrate, leading to potential tension between demonstrating commitment of state ideological goals and meeting the requirements of global stakeholders. For social obligations comparable with employees of coke products on subjects which social data. Are enhancing accountability on the real accounts to give you find similar challenges that meet all equations model social responsibility can be developed. According to the obligations can make your purchase and retain an inductive approach supports your discussion of social obligations accounting, suggests both those embodied in. These studies of obligations. It is a generation capable of salary and corporate citizenship and pragmatism over recent years has running water supplies from social obligations of accounting information,
    [Show full text]
  • Eugenics and Domestic Science in the 1924 Sociological Survey of White Women in North Queensland
    This file is part of the following reference: Colclough, Gillian (2008) The measure of the woman : eugenics and domestic science in the 1924 sociological survey of white women in North Queensland. PhD thesis, James Cook University. Access to this file is available from: http://eprints.jcu.edu.au/5266 THE MEASURE OF THE WOMAN: EUGENICS AND DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN THE 1924 SOCIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WHITE WOMEN IN NORTH QUEENSLAND Thesis submitted by Gillian Beth COLCLOUGH, BA (Hons) WA on February 11 2008 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Arts and Social Sciences James Cook University Abstract This thesis considers experiences of white women in Queensland‟s north in the early years of „white‟ Australia, in this case from Federation until the late 1920s. Because of government and health authority interest in determining issues that might influence the health and well-being of white northern women, and hence their families and a future white labour force, in 1924 the Institute of Tropical Medicine conducted a comprehensive Sociological Survey of White Women in selected northern towns. Designed to address and resolve concerns of government and medical authorities with anxieties about sanitation, hygiene and eugenic wellbeing, the Survey used domestic science criteria to measure the health knowledge of its subjects: in so doing, it gathered detailed information about their lives. Guided by the Survey assessment categories, together with local and overseas literature on racial ideas, the thesis examines salient social and scientific concerns about white women in Queensland‟s tropical north and in white-dominated societies elsewhere and considers them against the oral reminiscences of women who recalled their lives in the North for the North Queensland Oral History Project.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Accounting & Audit
    Social Accounting & Audit Social accounting and audit (SAA) helps you prove, improve and account for the difference you are making. It can help an organisation to investigate its performance against social, environmental and economic objectives, and ensure that it is working in accordance with its values. It is a logical and flexible framework to understand the impact your organisation has on people, the planet and the way we use resources. It will also help to manage your organisation and improve your effectiveness. This framework is built on: Prove! - account fully for and report on your organisation’s social, environmental and economic performance and impact Improve! – provide the information essential for planning future actions and improving performance; and Account! – be accountable to all those you work with and work for… According to the Social Audit Network (SAN), a network providing assistance to third sector or social economy organisations throughout the UK and internationally, the key principles of social accounting are: Multi-perspective: encompassing the views of people and groups that are important to the organisation Comprehensive: inclusive of all activities of an organisation Comparative: able to be viewed in the light of other organisations and addressing the same issues within same organisation over time Regular: done on an ongoing basis at regular intervals Verified: checked by people external to the organisation Disclosed: readily available to others inside and outside of the organisation To get ready, you need to learn how Social Accounting works, what resources are required, decide how the process will be managed; and make an informed decision about whether to go forward.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is Corporate Accountability?
    WHAT IS CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY? BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW Since the 1990s, the world has witnessed the growing importance and visibility of a range of initiatives led by businesses, social organisations and governments, with the stated aim of pressuring companies to behave in more socially responsible and accountable ways. This is a new development for many parts of the business world. Previously, the state (or government) was assumed to lead standard setting and behavioural norms for businesses in relation to most categories of stakeholders. When community organisations and interest groups wanted to change business behaviour, they focussed on changing the law. From the 1990s the focus changed, reflected in the emergence of new alliances and regimes of influence over business norms, linking together consumers, communities, workers and producers. What is the difference between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate accountability? Corporate responsibility, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate accountability are sometimes confused or seen to be synonymous. However, corporate responsibility and corporate accountability are typically distinguished from one another along several lines. Corporate responsibility in its broadest sense refers to varied practices that reflect the belief that corporations have responsibilities beyond generating profit for their shareholders. Such responsibilities include the negative duty to refrain from harm caused to the environment, individuals or communities, and sometimes also positive duties to protect society and the environment, for example protecting human rights of workers and communities affected by business activities. Such responsibilities are generally considered to extend not only to direct social and environmental impacts of business activity, but also to more indirect effects resulting from relationships with business partners, such as those involved in global production chains.
    [Show full text]